Mourning ceremony prompts controversy

A China Central Television (CCTV) presenter and a commentator's participation in a run to pay tribute to the victims of Tuesday's Boston bombing has caused Web users to criticize CCTV for paying too much attention to foreign tragedies as opposed to local ones, after assuming the broadcaster organized the event.

At around 10:30 pm Tuesday, CCTV-5, the sports channel, posted some pictures featuring the event on its Sina Weibo account, noting that Yu Jia, the channel's basketball commentator, hosted a mourning ceremony, while Lang Yongchun, a popular CCTV news presenter, participated in the run at the Olympic Forest Park.

Web users were quick to assume that the run was part of a CCTV-sponsored event, which most accused of being "artificial" while saying that CCTV turns a blind eye to domestic tragedies.

Actually, the event was jointly initiated by Tencent, an Internet service portal and a sports newspaper, as well as Yu. With "Run for Life," as its theme, participants said runners all over the world have no boundaries, so running is the best way to mourn for the deceased.

Wu Fatian, a Beijing-based law professor, said in his Weibo that a fire had broken out in a hotel in Xiangyang, Hubei Province, which killed 14, including a 5-year-old child. "I didn't see CCTV mourn for them!" said Wu.

His commentary was far from isolated. Some even cited the severe earthquake hitting the border of Iran and Pakistan that resulted in at least 40 casualties as evidence that the television network was biased.

Yu posted a Weibo entry at about 11:40 pm Tuesday, saying many people in the country are so "ignorant and fearless" that they "made me sick."

"The Boston Marathon is a holy land for every marathon lover. It's normal for the group to mourn for the victims of the terrorist attack, and there's no need to compare this with the bombing in Iraq or Xiangyang fire," commented one microblogger.